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Barrow MP welcomes steps for more secure hospital staff

AN MP has welcomed support which would allow hospitals to recruit and retain more clinical staff.

John Woodcock, MP for Barrow and Furness, has welcomed a health minister’s support for steps to ensure local hospitals can recruit and retain more clinical staff.

At a meeting with health minister Dan Poulter, Mr Woodcock raised the NHS trust’s proposal to introduce a staff rotation scheme, which would allow for staff recruited for Morecambe Bay hospitals to experience working in other areas as well, making the trust a more attractive recruiter.

The minister agreed to write to Health Education England, who are now responsible for NHS training, to flag up the value of the proposed scheme.

The meeting was originally called to discuss the investigation into failings at the Morecambe Bay’s maternity and neonatal units.

The minister stressed to the local MPs that the investigation, which Dr Bill Kirkup has now begun, was completely independent of any ministerial interference and that when it reported, the Department of Health would study its findings and recommendations carefully.

Mr Woodcock said: “Managers are right to think out of the box to give Furness General staff the chance to get new experience of approaches elsewhere in the region and attract in the fresh talent to solve our recruitment problems.

"It was good to get the minister's pledge to try to find ways to support the idea and I will do whatever Is useful to support the trust in making it happen.

“It was also welcome that Dan Poulter stressed the importance that will be attached to the findings of Dr Kirkup’s investigation: it will be essential that ministers and the NHS study very carefully the outcome of his work if we are to ensure that no-one else has to suffer the same tragic loss as too many local families did.”